From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

Anyone who undertakes
a commentary on Shakespeare's sonnets usually does so from the
standpoint
of one who has known them for many long years. It would be refreshing
if
they could be approached by one seeing them for the first time, so that
the experience might be similar to that of plunging into a glacial
pool,
unknown and undipped into for many years by man or gods. Not so,
however,
for this present writer, and I must confess to an old acquaintance with
them, to all the preconceptions that that acquaintance brings, and to
all
the dangers of weariness, lack of perception and satiety. Nevertheless,
for this immediate task, I have attempted to look at each line afresh,
and
to ask myself 'Do I really understand what this line, or this word, or
this
sentence means?' The experience has been illuminating, and I have to
admit
in numerous instances that the mere habit of words engraved in the
memory
over many years was not enough to bring the obvious concomitant
understanding
which might be expected to walk beside it. Even with the excellent help
now offered by such editors as Stephen Booth, Katherine Duncan-Jones, G
Blakemore Evans, and John Kerrigan, and the commentaries of Helen
Vendler,
(for a link to her commentary on this sonnet see below), I find that
perplexity
still lingers. This is as true for me of Sonnet I as it is of the more
well
known 'difficult' sonnets later in the sequence.

HV in her commentary
illuminates the wealth of material
derived from literary, proverbial, biblical, and aphoristic sources, as
well as those of common wisdom and friendly banter, which this sonnet
contains,
foreshadowing as it does the material of so many of the later ones
(numerically
later - it is innappropriate here to comment on possible or actual
dates
of composition). Yet for the understanding of individual words and
phrases
one is frequently thrown back upon one's own resources. For what is one
to make of riper in l.3, bear his memory
in l.4, contracted
to thine own bright eyes in l.5, the whole of l.6, ditto for
l.11, and
by the grave and thee of l.14. Commentaries on
words and phrases
such as these are very necessary for the modern reader because the
language
has changed over the intervening 500 years, because of altered poetic
conventions,
and because in many cases they were ambiguous even when they were
written,
either deliberately or unconsciously so.

With
regard to the riper
who should by time decease, (l.3) one tends to ask
'riper in relation
to what?' Is it the only herald of the gaudy spring who is deemed to be
riper than his putative heir, and are we already talking about the
decease
of this individual, before we have even considered his growing to
maturity?
Surely ripeness is a quality we attribute to objects of middle and
later
age, to those in the autumn of their days, preparing to be borne away
with
white and bristly beard, but to attribute it to a lusty youth does not
seem
right and is alien to the matter. Why is the word of autumn used in
this
context? It could be that a generality is being stated, but we ought
not
therefore to allow that the youth, the lovely boy, should be consigned
to
musty ripeness and old age before his adult life has barely begun. I
wonder
whether or not the use of the term riper is somehow connected in
advance
by concatenation of sound with Time the reaper, who will collect the
harvest
brought about by the increase of fairest creatures, of corn, of seed,
of
sowing and of crops, but also with Time the grim reaper who prepares
all
for his scythe: the fair youth can become not only riper than his
predestined
heir, but the reaper also who prudently harvests the crop, and the
final
slayer who brings all things to their inevitable end. He is himself the
slayer, the thing which is slain, and the thing which grows up to
replace
all this loss. Of course our understanding of the phrase is not
necessarily
helped by compounding it with other meanings, and it does not exactly
make
sense to say 'but as the riper, (Time, the reaper), should by
time decease'
the reality is that the phrase was not entirely
intelligible in the
first instance, and is enhanced, enriched, and given greater stability
by
having these other semi-conscious meanings attached to it. None of us
knows
how Shakespeare's mind worked, and what were the circumstances which
gave
rise to these poems, but the wealth of echoes and counter suggestions
with
which they appear to be filled leads one to think that, in the ferment
of
their creation, many half hidden meanings lay buried, which, in the
fulness
of time, came to have greater significance than at first he realised.

'His tender heir might bear
his memory' should not
cause the reader too much difficulty, except that the phrase bear
his
memory is slightly odd. It conveys the meaning not only of
keeping the
memory of something alive in one's mind, but also that of bearing an
impress
or imprint, as for example from a seal, and it also continues the image
of fruition and increase through pregnancy, 'the second
burthen of a
former child', suggesting perhaps that passing on the memory
of oneself
through procreation and descent is a continuing process.

In
a casual reading of this
first sonnet one tends to pass over the next two linesBut thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,rather rapidly, as they seem to imply only that the
youth is excessively
narcissistic, and is burning up the light he should be shedding on the
world
in some sort of wasteful manner. But, for the sake of the sequence as a
whole, which will take up these ideas again, it is important to try to
clarify
now what is being said. I think the difficulty arises primarily because
of the concentration of imagery in a confined space: (legal) contracts,
betrothal, contraction, reduction, impoverishment, eyes, brightness
(which
dazzles the eyes), Narcissism, light, flame, candle, burning, fuel,
talents,
waste, light under a bushel, etc. I quote here only what various
editors
have mentioned. One is left therefore with the paraphrase that the
youth,
shrunken to a pair of eyes only, or having made a compact with them,
narcissistically
devours himself, and like a candle burns up his own wax or tallow, or
like
any other form of light, (whatever was available in Shakespeare's day)
burns
up its own fuel. On a purely physiological level, it is impossible that
eyes can function alone, as Shakespeare would no doubt have
acknowledged,
although he can still entertain the conceit that this is not so, as in
Sonn.
46

Mine eye and heart are at
a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight.

Equally
it is unclear how any
flame can feed itself other than on self-substantial fuel, for that is
the
nature of a candle or a fire. It is best perhaps to emphasise the
metaphorical
meaning of these images and to see in them references to the soul of
the
person, his essence, the light he casts upon the world. The eyes are
the
windows of the soul, and by extension the soul itself, so that to make
a
contract with one's soul so as to starve the world of any profit from
it
is rather like making a Faustian contract with the devil. The result is
to reduce everything to 'one's own deep-sunken eyes', as
is claimed
in the next sonnet, that is, to let it waste away until it becomes like
the soul of a miser or heretic wasting away on his death bed. (See
below
however for an additional implication in deep-sunken eyes).

The
fire and flame images are
also metaphoric rather than particular, referring to the soul's
essence,
its light, its vitality. Candles are rather squalid by comparison, and
one
cannot press the actuality of the imagery too far. Hiding one's light
under
a bushel, if the light were a candle, might result in a conflagration
in
the barn. (Matt. v. 15). The light of the soul burns
without any
flame, without any fuel. Therefore it must not be squandered. The
imagery
of light is repeated again in the word 'herald' of
l.10. For many
I think this would conjure up the image of the morning star, the
brightest
star in the sky, and the fair youth becomes, by implication, even more
dazzling.

All
this light and radiance
however becomes somewhat darkened and obscured in the next line, 'Within
thine own bud buriest thy content'. It appears to have
mainly a sexual
connotation, indeed its predominant meaning is sexual, for in botanical
terms a flower burying its own content within its own bud hardly makes
sense.
Taken in isolation the sexual application of the phrase would not be
overt,
but there are echoes in the next three sonnets which underline its
meaning.
Thus

Then being asked, where all
thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days; II

For where is she so fair
whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,
Of his self-love to stop posterity? III

Since
III deals so obviously
with the sexual duty of the husband in fathering children through
sexual
intercourse, it seems probable that these other assertions, as well as 'within
thine own bud etc', are covert references to masturbation,
one of the
consequences of which, in male company, probably in Shakespeare's day
also,
would jokingly be foretold as 'deep-sunken eyes'
II.7. Onan's sin
precisely was to stop posterity, 'that he might not have children in
his
brother's name'. And devotional manuals probably referred coyly to the
sin
of self-abuse. my abuses, for example, in 121,
refers to sexual misdemeanours.
(See also the note by GBE to III 7-8, p119, where the word used is
autoeroticism.
And KDJ on IV 1-2, p118.) I need not over stress the point, for there
is
enough sexual matter in the sonnets for us to have long since innured
ourselves
to being shocked by them. The argument that Shakespeare could not
possibly
have used such language to a young nobleman depends on us actually
establishing
in advance what the relationship between a coterie of young men, with a
sprinkling of some slightly older ones, might have been like, how free
it
was, how much it was governed by convention, and how much those
conventions
could be stretched or broken.

Within thine own bud buriest
thy content, might crudely
therefore be paraphrased as 'waste yourself by not bursting into
flower',
or 'spend all your time masturbating, instead of procreating', the
latter
meaning being hidden by the botanical imagery to which the poet could
appeal
if challenged on the too obvious sexual overtones of a poem addressed
ostensibly
to a young nobleman. Or at any rate to a young man, noble or otherwise,
who appears soon enough hereafter to arouse the poet's passions and
desires.
Thus decency and decorum are saved, but the coterie of friends who are
the
recipients of the original poem were free to laugh at the more intimate
content of the lines if they so wished, especially if they echoed what
already
they had been discussing among themselves.

The
concluding couplet Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.prompts the question 'What is due to the world, to the
grave, to thee
thyself, to anyone, in the great scheme and mystery of things?' In
terms
of this sonnet it is a duty to posterity, that posterity be created
from
beauty. It suggests also a reckoning, that the world keeps accounts and
makes up a balance sheet, what is given and what is received. The theme
is taken up many times, but this ending ties in rather beautifully with
the final sonnet to the youth, the valedictory sonnet 126. In this one,
it is Nature which does the accounting, but Nature is exchangeable with
the world in this opening sonnet.

Yet fear her, O thou minion
of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.
CXXVI

Thus
the sequence comes full
circle. The account must be made up, and you , the youth, must settle
it,
and only then will Nature write upon it 'quietus est',
you have played
your part, home art gone and ta'en thy wages. Not before then will you
be
discharged. There is something strangely poignant about these lines,
for
one feels that the man who wrote them has travelled more than half the
expanse
of human experience. Whether his love was real or imaginary we need not
ask too insistently, and probably we shall never know the historical
details
of it. What we have cause to be eternally grateful for is that he
succeeded
in writing about it.